brewjunky

Recipes 

LED lights wouldn't skunk the beer...............

My carboys sit in my basement and the lights are on for like 16 hours a day and I have never had skunked beer.

I think the lights would only be on for a short period just to admire then be shut off.

Boerderij_Kabouter

Recipes 

Yeah, I am a bit worried about the thermal loss through the glass, but I will be maintaining the temps in there at around 60ish for most ales, colder for lagers but we will see. The temp of the freezer is maintained by the first love controller and I will keep it at about 37 +/- 3. The floor of the fermentation chamber is highly insulated and air is only exchanged between the freezer and the fermentation chamber when the second love detects a need for cooling. At that point the love operates fans in the communication tubes to transfer cold air from the freezer into the fermentation chamber. In addition, if I needed to heat the upper chamber, I could cap off the communication tubes and place a heating element in the upper chamber. Like Junky said, the design of chest freezers maintains the cold air in the bottom of the freezer so natural convection into the upper chamber really shouldn't be a problem.

I will be coating the glass with a UV resistant film (pretty cheap at your local Home Depot). They block 99.9% of UV and this will be in my basement where it is never in the sun.

__________________
2P-Twent-E Simple Brew DITCHES 1 DITCHES 2 Fermentolagertaporator side-by-side ferm Twelve Hopostles Labels

Boerderij_Kabouter

Recipes 

My thought with the glass was... yes, I will lose some heat out through the glass, but I won't be opening the doors everyday (realistically a couple times a day ) and dumping all the cold air out of the chamber. This way I would only open the doors when I needed to transfer or take a measurement. I think in the end the glass would be more efficient.

__________________
2P-Twent-E Simple Brew DITCHES 1 DITCHES 2 Fermentolagertaporator side-by-side ferm Twelve Hopostles Labels

Evan!

Recipes 

A security camera would be more efficient still, with monitors built into the front.

__________________
MOSS HOLLOW BREWING CO.
Aristocratic Ales, Lascivious Lagers

.planned:
•Scottish 80/- •Sweet Stout •Roggenbier
.primary | bright:
98: Moss Hollow Soured '09 72: Oude Kriek 99: B-Weisse 102: Brett'd BDSA 104: Feat of Strength Helles Bock 105: Merkin Brown
.on tap | kegged:
XX: Moss Hollow Springs Sparkling Water 95: Gott Mit Uns German Pils 91b: Brown Willie's Oaked Abbey Ale 103: Merkin Stout
98: Yorkshire Special 100: Maple Porter 89: Cidre Saison 101: Steffiweizen '09 (#3)

Boerderij_Kabouter

Recipes 

Now you're talking my language!!

__________________
2P-Twent-E Simple Brew DITCHES 1 DITCHES 2 Fermentolagertaporator side-by-side ferm Twelve Hopostles Labels

pjj2ba

Recipes 

Love the low-rider hip-hop Lederhosen

You could always make the lid double paned with an air space in the middle. Also, you might consider plexiglass or lexan - they are better insulators. Of course they scratch. You could use plastic for the inner layer and glass on top.

__________________
On Tap: Pale Ale, CAP, Saison, Kolsch
Kegged and Aging/Lagering: Imperial Alt, CAP, GDR pils
Secondary:
Primary: Kolsch, OKZ (std Amer. lager), CZ pils
Brewing soon: Saison, IPA
Recently kicked : ( Bock, Baltic Porter, Ger. Pils, Lite IPA,
Pilsner Urquell Master Homebrewer (1st NYC 2011, 2nd NYC 2012)
P U crowns winners in its inaugural master HB competition

Brewin_Bob

Recipes 

Screw that! Webcam it so we can watch!!

__________________

-- Kings Full Brewery --
-- Currently Being Remodeled --
Primary:None
Secondary:None
Conditioning:Lemstrac Wine, first mead
Bottled:None

tentacles

Recipes 

Why do the glass the hard way? Just call up a glass shop, and ask about triple pane IGUs in the size you want. These are what are typically used on commercial fridges. They're 3 panes of glass, usually a low-e type, and I'm sure UV inhibiting glass is no problem. They're also filled with inert gas, and have dessicant packs built in to help prevent fogging long-term.

Randar

Recipes 

Glass (even relatively thick glass)is extremely effective in terms of heat transfer. This of course if very BAD for cooling. Also, unless you have a SS fermenter in there, the potential for light spoilage is quite high. If you are going to go with glass, you might want to look into one of 2 things:

1) Multiple panes of thick glass (or buy doors from one of the commercially available glass-front fridges and size cabinet appropriately). You could even use a sliding fridge door from a commercial/industrial cooler and have it slide to the right behind the right hand side of the cabinet.

2) Provide some low wattage back-lighting in the upper cabinet to turn on when trying to impress the friends, but tint the glass and keep this lighting off most of the time.

ChshreCat

Recipes 

What would be REALLY cool? If you could somehow build lighting into the shelves to the carboys would be lit from the bottoms. I'm sure that's more involved than lighting needs to be... but it would be SO COOL!!!